Saturday, February 5, 2011

Q&A with Mindy MacKay, which doesn't actually rhyme, since the pronunciation of my last name is Mack-Eye, but OH WELL.

Hello my lovelies. A few weeks ago I took questions about Soulgame from readers down at FangTastic Books, and now I'm answering 'em. SO. Here goes.

SandyG265 asks, "Is Kiera based on someone you know in real life?"

Good question. I like to think I've made her a sympathetic protagonist, but no, she's not based on anyone. She and I share the same...cough...aesthetic sensibilities, but other than that, she has no basis in the real world.

Jolene Allcock and Family ask, "Where did you get your ideas for your books? Did you pull anything from your day to day life?"

Yes. Just last year, I was caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and got infected while trying to save my lover's life.

Well, no, not really. Several scenes from the series were lifted from my life almost directly, but those have since been deleted because they're not nearly as interesting as what I can just pull out of the infinite.

Honestly, in the sliding scale of pantser versus plotter, I'm a plotter in spades. I spend so much time planning and deliberating every subtle strategic move my characters make that I forget where the inspiration came from in the first place. Though the few times when I can pinpoint the origin of an idea, it's usually some political current event or a piece of really old, public-domain literature.

Sadangel asks, "Does Kiera feel she is strong enough to make the tough decision, or does she feel that she needs someone to help her decide which way to go?"

That is a really, really good question and I'm glad you asked that because it's the cliffhanger question that ends Soulgame. Ultimately, she comes to the decision that she believes is moral, but you'll have to wait until the next book to figure out whether she's really making her own choices or if she's being influenced by an outside source which I can't name right now due to spoiler risk.

Tore asks, "What made you decide to become a writer?"

...Actually, I didn't decide to be a writer. I plan to go into biology. The writering profession more or less chose me. And for that matter, I have yet to meet a writer who actually, consciously "decided" to become a writer. But maybe that's because I don't hang out with the business-people side of the writering world, but the side that doesn't try to tamper with or control the output of its subconscious soul.

Meredith asks, "Why zombies? I don't see the attraction."

You're not supposed to. My zombies are not for amorous activities. My zombies are meant to scare, frighten, shock, and terrorize you. There's no attraction involved. I've got actual thinking characters for that, although those can be pretty terrorizing too.

Okay. Who said anything about vampires or angels, because they're not in this series at all.

Now that that's out in the open, the main battle of this series isn't something that can be won by one faction/species/race or another. The conflict is man v. self, so really the question you should be asking is, does Kiera's conscience win, or do her id and ego take over?